Hey girls! Here's a piece of advice: When you discover a man trying to secretly bury the corpse of someone who has clearly been murdered, don't try to blackmail them - The fact that they are burying a dead body probably means they might be prone to fits of murderous violence, or at least know someone who's mental.This is a standard template Giallo film with the black gloved killer, sexy victims, loads of suspects, body count and stalking sequences, but it's also fast-paced, fun and of course for this period is set in a huge creepy mansion - there must be millions of them in Italy! Hey William Bergers! Try to find a better excuse for trying to cover up all the murders at your insane asylum for Giallo Red Herring Actors because the one you gave our heroine was a bit lame. Love that flashback, however! Also, if you want to keep your disfigured sister-in-law secret up on the top floor, give her slippers rather than the giant shoes she had on. And tell her to lift her feet when walking! It is fun that most of the characters own or have something already displayed by the killer (a straight razor, a big black gown etc) and am I going mad or did one of the non-killer character actually murder a coach driver? That was weird. Also, it supposed to be set in Norfolk! Hey recently unmasked killers! Do not under any circumstances when being chased by an angry mob try to put any height between you and said mob, because this always results in a short but fatal struggle with gravity.For another, far, far more filthy giallo set in an insane asylum, look no further than Slaughter Hotel!

"The Murder Clinic" (1966) is a fairly obscure Italian-French Gothic that first aired on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater in 1979, and repeated only once four years later. It was also part of a notorious triple bill that frequented drive ins in the early 70's (under the name REVENGE OF THE LIVING DEAD), shown with CURSE OF THE LIVING DEAD (Mario Bava's KILL, BABY, KILL!) and FANGS OF THE LIVING DEAD (Amando De Ossorio's MALENKA, NIECE OF THE VAMPIRE). The print I have runs 83 minutes and looks to be a third generation copy, with English dialogue and foreign subtitles. William Berger, later the star of Mario Bava's "5 Dolls for an August Moon" (1970), plays the handsome doctor working on skin grafts that all the women swoon over, with a jealous invalid for a wife, and a mysterious woman on the third floor who refuses to see or be seen by anyone. Murder by razor plagues the clinic, but only one victim is completely innocent of her fate. Nothing terribly memorable, but fondly recalled in the 30 years since. The blonde actress who plays the nurse Mary is not the same brunette Barbara Wilson who appeared in 1957's "Blood of Dracula" and 1962's "The Flesh Eaters."

Murder Clinic is one of the lesser known Giallo's that has yet to be brought into the spotlight like many of the better examples of the genre have been already. In my opinion, this is a film that will never get the shiny DVD release; and the reason for that is simply that it's not all that good. That's not to say that it's a terrible film; clearly director Elio Scardamaglia has an eye for Gothic visuals; the sets and atmosphere bode well with the plot line and the film does emulate the classic Universal horror style very well...but there's really not enough of the film and what there is of the plot is very clichéd and since most people that bother to seek out this film will be hardened horror veterans (like myself), no viewer of Murder Clinic is likely to find anything they haven't seen before. As the title suggests, the film focuses on murders at an English clinic and the story takes place in the 1870's. Basically, a bunch of the clinic's vulnerable residents are being picked off by a razor-wielding maniac and we get a handful of possible suspects.The plot actually doesn't play out too badly; we get treated to a few murders before being introduced to the 'monster' of the story and the back-story behind that monster (which is actually fairly interesting but could and should have been handled in a much better way). However, the film does have a tendency to run into the melodramatic and while Elio Scardamaglia's direction is sound, the film was clearly shot on a low budget and he doesn't ever manage to make the film look anything more than a cheap affair (although in fairness, the VHS copy I saw does the film no favours). The film only runs for about eighty minutes and that's a good thing to be honest as it definitely would have started to get boring if it were any longer; although the runtime we do have only just keeps the film from becoming boring. The way that Murder Clinic handles red herrings is good and we get four main ones and to the film's credit, it's not immediately obvious who the killer is before it's revealed. Overall, this is not a great Giallo by any means and only hardcore genre fans should check it out; but it's a decent watch at least.

I saw this on late night TV and fell in love with it. It starts with a great, weird opening credit sequence and contains a music score credited to "Frank Mason" that you will find yourself humming all through the rest of the movie (and maybe the rest of your life). It also has great color photography and atmospheric dark lighting which all works together to create a scary mood before the movie even gets going good. Too bad almost no one else I've met has ever heard of this film. My girlfriend and I really enjoyed it, although she got very mad at me for humming the title theme while she was trying to listen to the dialogue. Oh, what I wouldn't give for a laserdisc of this movie.Actually it turns out the composer of the great music score is an Italian by the name of Francesco De Masi and he also did the score for the movie THE GHOST (1963). There is a scene in the beginning with a couple in bed that got cut out of the TV version even though it doesn't really show anything and in fact, I think the first murder may have been cut. Luckily, there is now a soundtrack CD but it is not officially available on DVD yet, and there are some really lousy prints floating around out there. I am not sure the Anglicized credits are imposed on the film by the American or British distributor or if the Italian production company pulled a "Riccardo Freda" and tried to make it seem like the film was made in England or America by giving the crew American-sounding names.